Design Trends

The Present of Design is History

In terms of style, more and more designers are resorting to past decades and it can be observed that today’s avant-garde is unable to set itself genuinely apart from yesterday’s avant-garde.

Such a stylistic return is the result of the search for security. The values of today’s society are anything but unambiguous and not at all uniform; rather there are various different value concepts competing against one another in a relationship of immanent competition. This creates disorientation and the need for more security. Against this backdrop, the well-known, renowned and incontestable authorities such as Ingo Maurer or the Bouroullec brothers, whose designs are often quoted this year, offer security.

Products turn into a Projection Screen for Communication

Products do no longer solve problems. Rather they turn into projection screens for communication. It has become evident that everything revolves around the question of who communicates his products in the most interesting way. In this process, the design and the products themselves take a back seat.

The issue of localisation has become increasingly important due to the globalisation in our times and the search for security. Thus Poltrona Frau, for instance, is showing rooms that represent individual regions. Such narrative presentations also demonstrate that to communicate one’s products becomes ever more important.

Personification of the Brand

In the fashion industry, emotionalising the brand world plays an ever more important role. It is taking place on all levels from perfumes up to interiors, personifying the brand. Armani, for example, who in addition to his fashion line also offers flower arrangements and accessories such as chocolate candies and marmalades, has already turned into a personified brand.

Against this backdrop, designers turn into “Design Factories“ – such as for instance Philippe Starck who has the capacity to successfully reinvent himself again and again, and he has done so once again this year with his collection of table “Gun Lamps” for Flos. Or with his lamp collection “La Vie” also for Flos: Here the lamp stands are decorated, for example, with the picture of a syringe and the thought-provoking question “Addict?” running underneath. A different model bears the Euro currency symbol and the question: “Greedy?”

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